Parenting Under Fire: An Ecological Perspective on Understanding Child Maltreatment in Military Families

Child maltreatment in any family or family-substitute context is a matter of great and on-going societal concern due to its negative consequence upon the child’s development and well-being. An emerging body of research primarily from the US argues the need to address child abuse and neglect in the military family context (McCarroll et al, 2008) suggesting that certain features of military family life may act as risk factors (Gibbs et al, 2007, 2008; Rentz et al., 2006, 2007). However, its occurrence has to be understood in the context of previous abuse pattern and/or experience prior to the individual being enrolled in military service (Martin et al., 2007) as well as other forms of family violence.
The paper will propose an ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) for conceptualizing the risk and protective factors for child abuse and neglect in military families along with a strategy for operationalizing its basic tenets through a process of systematic review and meta-analysis of research findings.
The findings will be discussed in light of their implications for practice, further research and methodological challenges.